Digimon Frontier

After the breakout success of Digimon Tamers Toei renewed Digimon for a 4th season, and here they had 2 choices: they could do Tamers 02 (just as they did Adventure 02) or a whole new series. As Adventure 02 mostly failed to keep the audience it would have been a huge risk to do Tamers 02, as it could go the same way, and so Frontier was born, setting a brave new world and timeline, once again starting from scratch. The concept of the series lies in one of the thing most Tamers fans loved: humans becoming one with digimon. The thing is, Tamers did ... this around episode 35, once we knew who the characters were and their story arcs matched this evolution almost perfectly. Starting from episode 1 with that kind of evolution is risky as we don't know anything about the new characters and so it could feel unearned, weird and anticlimactic. Many viewers turned off after just a couple of episodes and I can't blame them, the start is very shaky, but once Frontier figured out what worked and what didn't work it started becoming better. Sadly, it was just a little too late, and so the ratings declined to a point of no return and the Digimon franchise would be buried in the ground until Savers comes out several years later.
Now, is Digimon Frontier really a bad series? No, not at all, but is it great? Again, no. It does many things right and many things wrongs. Let's see the hits and miss.

Story wise: The plot is simple; once upon a time, in the digital world, there were 10 warriors who stopped the world from destruction. As a new threat rises, human kids are called to participate on a "game" that will decide their future. That game is going to take place in the digital world and the kids must become one with the spirits of said warriors in order to save the digital world.
Now, there's a lot of juice to that plot, you can explore this brand new digital world while adding layers of complexity to the plot by discovering the past of the warriors, what kind of trials they went through and how it affects the current situation. Sadly, Frontier doesn't bother going there; we just follow the children who got a power beyond their understanding. Ok, that can work out too if you have good characters, but character work isn't really that good either (we'll see that later), and the plot moves mostly ignoring any development the children make. Frontier has 2 bad habits: 1) it set character development mostly in filler episodes that add almost nothing to the story, and there's many episode that feels like this and 2) when the plot finally moves it usually sacrifices character development in order to compensate for the lack of movement in filler episodes. As such pacing is really troublesome here, sometimes slow as a snail, sometimes fast as a train, and as such we can't really get to enjoy it all that well. There are two main story arcs, one that takes place for 37 episodes and other one that uses just 13 episodes.
The first arc is a mixed bag: the first 10 episodes are outright boring, with simple plot and no depth to it, but as we move forward we slowly start to dip our toes into darker themes and get into the depths of the series. By episode 21 we can see the Digimon Frontier it should have been from the beginning, but as I said it was already a little too late for becoming good, at that point most of it audience might have as well left. As the arc continues, there are some really good moments, but also many that lag, and as such enjoyment is just fair.
The second and final arc is also a mixed bag as it starts rushed and only finds real momentum in the final 4 episodes or so, becoming the highlights of the series. The final episodes are smartly crafted and find the right pace to end the series, but anything before that I got through by sighing mostly hoping it would end quickly. As such, I can't think it was a great or even a good arc, it had its moment, but it constantly sacrifices some important character development in order to move as quickly as it can, and that's just a mess.

Characters: Just as I said in the story section, this is a mixed bag. This is not the worst character treatment in a Digimon series, but it's not the best either. Takuya is a good lead; he gets the usual broad strokes at the beginning and then is developed into a more complex kind of character. We get to explore his fear a lot, and because of it his bravery feels real. However, sometimes it gets repetitive and one might find it boring, but usually the character work is right.
It's the rest of the children who really have the trouble as their development is mostly scattered. Kouji is the cold one who gradually warms up, Tomoki the youngest of the group and the cry baby that grows up (doesn't this remind you of Takeru?), Izumi the girl who is figuring out how to be kind, Jumpei who wants to make real friends and Kouchi who is conflicted by family issues. All of that sounds good and with the right treatment you can get great characters. In fact, in early going Jumpei made a case for breakout character as his issues were the ones that could be pointed out easily and he grew around them. I expected a lot from him, but then the show just forgets it has ever developed this character. And the same happens to Izumi and Tomoki.
Kouji and Kouichi mostly get treated as just one character; their background is interesting, and smartly crafted, but they take the spotlight from the rest of the characters and once Kouichi is added in the series every single character moment from either of them have to include the other, making difficult to see them as separete individuals. And also, the more we spend with this duo the less we see of the others, and it seems as if Frontier is all about them, and that just frustrates me as I don't just get bored of being handled the same thing, but I also see a lot of characters who have potential not being used.
Talking about potential not being used, there was a pretty strong character combo in early series: Takuya and Tomoki had a great brother’s like chemistry, but Frontier seems to abandon this. The same happens with Jumpei and Izumi, who get a couple of strong episodes together and seem to be a good fit. But the show mostly explores two combos: Takuya/Kouji and Kouji/Kouichi.
As such, Frontier hurts itself by forgetting some character with real potential.
Still, everybody gets their screen time and we can see them becoming more mature, it just feels... rushed, convoluted and sometimes unearned. Takuya, Kouji and Koichi get the best treatment, the other 3, while somewhat developed, are mostly left in the air, which makes the character treatment somewhat lacking, but with some great moments, so it's only fair.

Sound: Though it shares some music that comes from the previous series, it is mostly new music, just like Tamers did, but not as great. It's still pretty good, but some tracks just don't land as they should. As such, it's no more than an 8. Very good, but something is lacking.

Enjoyment: very scattered. At times I just wanted to skip episodes because I couldn't stand the slow pace of the fillers episodes and at times I just didn't want the episode to end because I was really enjoying it. Digimon Frontier have a chunk of good episodes, but I'm afraid that the amount of filler is just too damn high, and when the plot moves it also forgets what the filler gets right, the character treatment. So it's really hard to say: I decided to go with "fair", because in the end I'm glad I re-watched, but I don't think I'll do it again. There are great moments, sure, but as a whole there are way too many troubles.

Overall, I think this series could have been really great, outstanding, but it didn't really know how to handle it. The fact that there are no digimon partners also hurt most of the audience it built over the years; if the spirits at least talked to our human characters then maybe it could have felt like we were watching a Digimon series. Even when Tamers set a whole new world, we still could recognize it was a Digimon series. In Frontier we get that by the huge amount of callback we get (including digimon from previous series, the crests, and many others element of earlier series), but not really because of the dynamic. If we could see this as a standalone series, without the Digimon name, maybe I'd go easier on it, but we can't due to the heavily amount of callbacks. And even if we could, it still wouldn't be great, as the story plot and character treatment are so scattered. As I said multiple times already, there is great potential there, there are some moments that shows us what this series should have been, but the writers don't dare go beyond the comfort zone all that often, and as such we get a series that is neither bad nor good, it just is.

Stray observartions (may include some spoilers):
-Through episode 2 to 41 we see Jumpei giving chocolates to a great amount of digimon. Just how many does he had with him before going to the digital world?
-In episode 18 we get the mother of callback, as we get to see many main digimon from previous series, such as v-mon, agumon, dukemon, taomon, wormmon, armadillomon, etemon, terriermon, among many others.
-In episode 38 Takuya finally explains why they have been fighting, as he says: "Right, we are human, but we are also half digimon". For me, that was a winning moment, as it finally gave some context as to why they have been risking their life all this time and it landed perfectly on context.
-Every time, in any digimon series, when someone says "did we get him?" the enemy always emerges from the damage. Every. Single. Time.
-As usually, per season, we got to see Leomon dying, this time killed by Takuya. Don't worry, he was just a random enemy, not an ally this time, and so it's not really traumatic.
-In episode 26 Frontier decided to do a kind of Snow White story with Izumi. It didn't really work, but it was fun to watch, even though the episode was mostly bad.
-It was interesting to see that Kouji has a dog and that he had to take care of a Tsunomon (who evolves later into Gabumon and then into Garurumon); it seems he has a connection with dogs and wolves, as all his evolutions are wolf related.
-In episode 31 Takuya outright says he is the main character. Sorry Jumpei, for what is worth I did think you could make it as a great character and lead before the show forgot about you.

And that's it! Two more Digimon series to go, and the following (Savers) is one of my favorites, so I'll be happy to review it!
Next up: after a long time nap, Digimon reawakens, as Savers come to save the franchise with excellent character treatment and the darkest plot to aim to an audience that already grew up

What started out with the potential to stand amongst the best seasons of Digimon instead takes a decline in quality during the second half and never realises it's true potential

Particular to note is the colour grading of the characters during the first half of the show as well as the background environments which give the aesthetic of the award winning watercolor paintings you'd find in a 8th grade classroom, aesthetically this suits the season and invokes a degree of talent and artistic eye behind the work but as it goes on and the environments get more abstract the colours begin to clash and feel more ... out of place.

The colour theory at work during the first half of the season is simple, effective and beautifully dates it to the time of its release and most importantly evolves on the style that the Digimon cartoons/anime had been developing up until that point so it's a shame to see the quality of the colours chosen in the second half decline to a noisy, contrasting mess.

If an animated work is difficult to look at then it's not fulfilling it's potential as a medium.

I'd like to draw attention to one criticism I've seen of this season which is that the characters don't feel as though they've grown over the course of the season and feel stagnant, which I don't agree with. I feel as though each character had internalized the lessons throughout the season although the writers didn't give enough moments to really shed light and let these characters reinstate the lessons on what they've internalized (which I understand why people would interpret it as no character development).

It makes the characters seem entitled, stubborn, or straight up apathetic to each lesson they're supposed to learn when it's not reflected in the story or the character goes through the same growth over and over again, but beneath that, in the subtle ways the characters interact with each other and the world, there was growth, at least to me.

Oh yeah, but the story in the second half is uninteresting, there's this hierarchy of villains and there's always this bigger or more powerful enemy to take down and there's rarely any compelling reason to care about the conflict, there is a hint of possibility that a villain had a trait or a history that would've made the conflict more interesting, and an episode later it does appear they could make the conflict feel genuine or interesting, and then in another episode they double back and introduce a bigger and badder villain in the next episode (if you're dying to know what episodes it's 34-36).

Ultimately the second half feels rushed and as well as the writers not having enough time to probably complete the script. Seriously When you get to episode 36 just watch the first 9 minutes then skip to the last 8 minutes of episode 50, everything between isn't required to get most out of the story.

I'd also like to touch on the criticism of "But the humans turn into Digimon". As someone who had these same criticism for most of my life I can proudly say that if you still hold these beliefs grow the fuck up.

To summarize, the season starts strong and carries itself well whilst all of the protagonists are collecting their spirits but as the first wave of recurring villains struggle to remain interesting into the second half of the season they just don't bring the energy required to keep the main characters or the story interesting and as they rush the story into a digital worldwide cataclysm they just don't engage any plot threads to keep it interesting and at episode 36 they drag out the climax and by extent the cataclysm that by episode 48 there season feels so exhausted it is practically wheezing...

And to monologue, that really sucks because once you get past the immature "but the humans turn into Digimon" there is so much here to genuinely enjoy, the opening moments of the 'call of destiny' is one of the best openings in any season of Digimon that genuinely makes it feel as though during any mundane moment destiny could be called upon anyone (although in real life not as dramatically fantastical), there's the growth of the characters and how their goals evolve from wanting to leave and go home to genuinely wanting to stay and help even though they're given many opportunities to go back home in the latter half, there's the digital world that feels far more alive and lived in than any season of Digimon that came before it (a far cry from the desolate wastelands of earlier seasons), finally one thing I enjoyed in the final half is that instead of just fighting the bad guys and defending villages the protagonists feel as though they're trying to keep the economy supported whilst everything is crumbling around them in the face of cataclysm and everything on the verge of falling apart there's moments like trying to help an injured Locomon recover, and later as a town relegated as a hatchery for Digimon eggs they, instead of just fighting the bad guy, make an effort to relocate the baby Digimon and digi-eggs (even calling for the help of a Locomon they helped repair a few episodes earlier) which serves as slithers of a light behind the veil of a decline in quality and a dragged out ending that haunts the final half of the show.

Digimon Frontier is awkward, flawed and ultimately ends as a tragedy of a season. But there are also moments of talent, honesty and slivers of virtuosity in this work that would make it dishonest to leave out of the discussion, the few bright moments this season achieved should be talked about and celebrated because left under a mountain of criticism is a lesson and a handful of virtues this franchise could learn and grow from and become a better franchise because of it and it's be a shame to leave the few things that Digimon Frontier passionately done well go unheard.

But It's still a 5/10.

--- P.S. That was a long one, I know it got kinda chonky towards the end, I know I didn't express a lot of my views best as I could have but this was all kinda spontaneous. For anyone who's interested my favorite season of Digimon is Tamers and I'm enjoying Digimon Ghost Game at the moment, I might do a review of the latter but I don't plan doing a review of Tamers, I don't feel as though there's anything new I could add to the discussion of Tamers and I'm personally confident in the quality of that season. I'm also sorry for any Frontier fans I likely rubbed the wrong way, I think for anyone who is a fan of this season should be proud of it, I encourage them to explore what they believe the virtues of this season are and share it with others as well, either in their own reviews or reflected in a work of their own.

It doesn't seem quite right to give a sequel series a higher score than the original... I know the very idea is practically blasphemous in the mighty world of Fandom.

So how do I justify this? Well, I've come to the conclusion that Adventure and Frontier are basically the same thing with just a few exceptions: Frontier's story is slightly darker, the lack of Digimon partners enables the human characters to do more than just stand on the sidelines during the fights, and the script just felt a little more... put-together. So, to be frank, by season four, the creators had gotten their shit together. ...

Now, I love Adventure. I think it holds up over time, which isn't the case for all of my childhood loves. Frontier is the only season of Digimon I've seen that I don't associate with my childhood. I watched it to completion for the first time when I was 13 or so. So that frees it up from a lot of nostalgia bias I could be feeling. In a lot of instances, Frontier follows Adventure's story and characters to the point where I would believe you if you told me this was actually a remake.

Frontier took what I already loved about Adventure and improved upon it... in all ways but one. For a show that was successful enough to be granted a FOURTH season... you'd think they'd be willing to take a risk with the animation budget.